My laptop crashes - i think it's the power cord but i'm not for sure

I have a 2 year old Toshiba Satellite Laptop model # A205-S4707.  I bought it brand new in 2008, but I just recently started having this problem.  I at first thought it was a problem with the video card because what will happen is the video freezes up and will show different color lines or a black or blue box.  I thought the window air conditioning unit by my desk being on may have something to do with it because I started noticing the issue at the beginning of summer when I started using the window AC.  The problem would normally happen when it would be loading my programs when I first turn it on, but now it crashes 30 minutes to an hour or maybe 2 hours after I turned it on.  I than thought it might be my power cord since there's a couple places in my power cord where the inner wire is exposed,  so I taped the areas and plugged it back in and it still crashes, but not as much as it used to.  The other day it wanted to crash every time I tried to start my laptop up, and since it would just crash after 2 hours of it being on. And this morning it wanted to crash while loading windows twice when I had it plugged in, but when I unplugged it it's working fine.  Something tells me it's the power cord causing the issue - anyone else have any experience with this issue? If so, how can this issue be resolved? I can't go on depending on battery usage because I like leaving my laptop on when I'm asleep (I have it turned off when I'm at work - so it's on probably 15 hours a day).  If anyone can help me, I'd appreciate it. My OS is Windows Vista.
THanks,
Mike

I have an 18-month P305 series Satellite and for a while (approximately 8-9 months ago) I couldn't figure out why my laptop would all of a sudden shut down while everything was working fine, or sometimes it even shut off when I press the power button to turn it on. My laptop was also acting pretty wierd with the Illumination Buttons, they wouldn't respond and froze, wouldn't light up after the computer has turned on and sometimes it won't turn off if the computer's been completely shut down, yes, the lights still stay lit afterward.
Just last week, when I was moving my laptop around to adjust for comfort, the thing shuts down on me again, this time I realized that the ac light had a 'quick' flick and this tells me that there is something wrong with power supply, either DC jack or the cord by the plug. I usually disconnect the battery when I have it plugged in to preserve the life of the cells. So when every time this thing becomes loose, the laptop would shut off. I was actually blaming the problem with bad BIOS and and maybe faulty updated drivers. The other day, I held the wire (by the socket and the fuse) and kind of twist and turn it and sure enough, I lost power, and the ac light flickered. I knew right away that was the problem. I found an identical original OEM power supply on ebay for $15 shipped, received it today and all is well. All this time, the culprit was the power cord. 
My advice is to take the battery out and run the power from the AC cord, wiggle and turn the 'wire' slightly by the dc jack, also, test the plug to the DC connecter; hold the barrel (the plug socket to the computer) and wiggle it, if it doesn't shut off then it's the wire and you need a new power supply. Make sure you buy one that is of high quality. I recommend OEM for safety reasons.
Satellite P305-S8997E | Windows7 Pro 64-bit | Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo T8100 2.16GHZ | 4GB DDR2 RAM | 320GB 5400RPM
Dell XPS 17 | corei7 andy Bridge | 8G DDR3 | 1TB x7200 | BD-RE | 1080P

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